Vanderbilt vs Tennessee Game Rescheduled

The SEC just announced that Vanderbilt will not play Tennessee on November 28th. Instead of hosting their in-state rivals, the Commodores will now travel to Columbia, Missouri. Here is the main text of the announcement.

The Arkansas at Missouri football game of November 28 has been postponed, resulting in rescheduling of games that include Vanderbilt playing at Missouri on November 28 and the postponement of the Tennessee at Vanderbilt game originally scheduled for November 28.

The Arkansas at Missouri football game of November 28 has been postponed due to combination of positive tests, contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of individuals within the Arkansas football program, consistent with Southeastern Conference COVID-19 management requirements.

The Vanderbilt at Missouri game is a rescheduling of a game postponed on October 17. The game will be played at Noon ET on Saturday on the SEC Network.

The Tennessee at Vanderbilt game is postponed for the purpose of facilitating the rescheduling of the Vanderbilt at Missouri game. This rescheduling of games allows for the continued opportunity for all 14 teams to play all of its 10 games in the 2020 season.

The key to why Vanderbilt’s game was affected is the last paragraph. Missouri now opens December 12th, where the Vanderbilt-Missouri game had been rescheduled, to play the game intended for this weekend against Arkansas. The apparent problem is that Tennessee is already playing a re-scheduled game against Texas A&M on December 12th, but a mid-season adjustment to scheduling options leaves an interesting possibility that is touched on later in the announcement.

The opportunity to reschedule the Arkansas at Missouri and Tennessee at Vanderbilt games will be evaluated. The rescheduling of games on the remaining SEC football schedule will include December 19 as a playing date.

Vanderbilt and Tennesse are both out of contention for playing in the SEC Championship Game on December 19th. Texas A&M is still in contention, though they need Alabama to lose to two of Auburn, Arkanasas, and LSU (presumably in a game to be rescheduled for December 12th). If A&M wins out and Alabama loses twice, they would be in the SEC Championship game, so the league needs them to complete their 10 regular season games before December 19th.

Tennessee is likely the luckiest team in the blender as they will now have an open date this Saturday. After another game where Jarrett Guarantano is being blamed for a loss, a QB change was rumored to be coming. Tennessee will now get a longer chance to make a decision at QB and give the choice time to acclimate before playing Florida December 5th. On the other hand, Vanderbilt may get Tennessee at 2-7 and coming off beat downs by Florida and Texas A&M.

So, cool the jets on hate week as we are now playing a team not worthy of recognition.